Archives for March, 2008

Imagine: An Interview with Svante Paabo: Svante Paabo works on the edge of what’s possible. He ignites our imagination, unlocking tightly held secrets in ancient remains. By patiently and meticulously working out techniques to extract genetic information from skin, teeth, bones, and excrement, Paabo has become the leader of the ancient DNA pack. Sloths, cave…

Reason For Almost Two Billion Year Delay In Animal Evolution On Earth Discovered: Scientists from around the world have reconstructed changes in Earth’s ancient ocean chemistry during a broad sweep of geological time, from about 2.5 to 0.5 billion years ago. They have discovered that a deficiency of oxygen and the heavy metal molybdenum in…

There is no well-defined boundary between honesty and dishonesty. The frontiers of one blend with the outside limits of the other, and he who attempts to tread this dangerous ground may be sometimes in one domain and sometimes in the other. – O. Henry

Living Upside-down Shapes Spiders For Energy Saving: An interdisciplinary team of researchers from Spain and Croatia led an investigation into the peculiar lifestyle of numerous spider species, which live, feed, breed and ‘walk’ in an upside-down hanging position. According to their results, such ‘unconventional’ enterprise drives a shape in spiders that confers high energy efficiency,…

The Four Stone Hearth #37 – The Pulp SciFi Edition – is up on Hot Cup Of Joe The Skeptic’s Circle – Every One Of You Is Expelled! – is up on Mike’s Weekly Skeptic Rant Grand Rounds Volume 4 No. 27 are up on monash medical student 165 Carnival of Education-Teachers Gone Wild Spring…

Scared publishers ask for a hearing and get an earful: Librarians and educators, meanwhile, strongly defended the NIH policy-and spoke of the lengthy process of consideration it has already gone through, urging that implementation now proceed as planned. In its comments, SPARC reiterated that all stakeholders have had ample time to consider the policy dating…

From the Library Journal: The Triangle Research Libraries Network (TRLN) pioneered the nation’s first consortial online catalog back in the 1980s, and this week, took that legacy a step further with the launch of “Search TRLN”, which officials say adds “next-generation search capabilities” to the consortium’s combined collection of 16 million volumes. Search TRLN, is…

Some people only know the language of power. They see conciliation and compromise as weakness. Show strength. If they are sissies hiding behind machismo, slam them hard. You have nothing to lose. Some will convert and come to your side. Some will go cower in the corner. None will hang around risking your anger for…